


Potential Disaster

by fairydustedtheory



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Laura Hale, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Attempt at Humor, Boss Laura Hale, Camp Counselor Derek Hale, Canon-Typical Violence, Human Stiles Stilinski, M/M, POV Stiles Stilinski, creepy Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:42:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairydustedtheory/pseuds/fairydustedtheory
Summary: Stiles gets hired at Hale’s Summer Camp because they need a human token in the supernatural staff. That should have been easy enough but there are some strange things going on...
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 13
Kudos: 257
Collections: A Very Sterek Summer fest 2020





	Potential Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Written for A Very Sterek Summer 2020. Day 2, theme Camp/Camping.  
> 
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://fairydustedtheory.tumblr.com/tagged/plot%20twist%20:%20i%20write)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

"You did _what,_ Laura?" was the first thing Stiles heard as he stepped out of his car in front of Hale's Camp. What a warm welcome that was.

He had driven into camp, winding its way up the narrow path between the tall trees before parking outside the main building. Stiles had made a point of arriving on time to look professional. He sort of wished he had been late now.

"Behave, please, he's here." Laura, the head counselor, reprimanded in hushed tones.

Although Stiles had tried his best to be discreet, she could tell he was here, having super hearing helped and all that, but Stiles’ human hearing could hear them as clear as day with their window open, so he supposed stealth was overrated here.

"Lauraaa." The male voice said, long-suffering.

"We need him. You just have to accept that, somehow, in that thick skull of yours. _We need him_." She said more intently.

Stiles knew, of course he knew, nothing about this was about him at all. Or yes, it was about him, but not him Stiles Stilinski, it was about him being human. Being human mattered here. He was very much aware he was the human token, as one was always needed.

Being human in society nowadays, it worked in terms of a quota to be respected. It was an unspoken rule now, unofficial but essential, since the supernatural world made itself known. No, the supernatural hadn’t been discovered, it hadn’t been outed. Stiles would have liked to believe humans were smart enough to find out for themselves but no such luck. The fuckers decided on their own terms when it was time to take over. Something like that. 

Stiles seemed a little over it right now, but if he was being completely honest, he was more than a little ecstatic. He was actually pretty into the whole supernatural thing. 

His friend, Scott, had gotten bitten when they were sixteen. That was actually a thing in his life now, not just something happening in society that could be as outside of his life as going partying on a yacht in Ibiza with the 1%. He was actually in contact with the supernatural almost daily and instead of causing drama and having people get maimed and gruesomely murdered as it could have been, well, it just was what it was. Scott went on with his life with just a little bit more fur than before.

Being a wolf must be great in the winter time. Stiles bet it was all fuzzy and comfortable. Too bad Scott never wanted to cuddle with him. 

Beacon Hills was a small town lost somewhere in NorCal. It could have stayed under the radar but over the years it became pretty well-known as being a safe haven for supernatural beings. Stiles' dad was the sheriff and really, if anyone was about equality it was Sheriff Stilinski. That was one of the reasons a lot of shifters came to live here.

  
The Hale family, famous werewolf pack in California, lived here and had lived here for generations even before the whole Revelation. That was what the media had called it back in the day and what it was still referred as today. The supernatural Revelation was some _major_ part of the history books. 

  
Hale's Summer Camp was set on the pack's territory. It was one of these diversity inclusive camps. A way to get the kids to interact and learn about each other while having fun. It was all in good nature and in the hopes of getting the new generations to mix a little more.

That was what the Revelation had been about. The supernatural world had grown tired of all the hiding and lying, they wanted out. And out they were.

Who would have thought they were so many?! It wasn't just about wolves, it was about all the shifters out there.

Anyway! The point was, Stiles was very much human and the son of the town's sheriff, he was the perfect token to prove to the antis that Hale's Summer Camp was actually inclusive and not at all made up of a bunch of shifter supremacists trying to indoctrinate little kids into getting the bite or something like that.

They were trying to teach kids of every species to view themselves as people who belonged in the same community. The Revelation had scarred the human population. Humans were very insecure little beings. And although Stiles loved being human, he could relate sometimes. There was a strong sense of weakness that came with it, especially when faced from all sides by the strength of others.

There was something to learn there.  
The whole thing that the camp was selling, Stiles needed it for himself. Scott was nowhere near enough exposure. Scott was nice but he was a little dumb sometimes and his feeling toward lycanthropy were not universal at all. There had to be something more than just feeling restless around the full moon and sniffing one’s girlfriend.

  
The wolves were now walking out of the building. Stiles had to make sure he didn't embarrass himself too much, try to make a good first impression, and in Laura's case a good second impression. It was always good to please the boss, right?

  
Stiles had seen Laura Hale when she had been in town trying to leave a job ad at the grocery store. He had walked over to the newly pinned paper on the board, ripped it off as quickly as it had been put up and had run after her in the parking lot.

It didn't take a genius to understand that they were actually looking for a human. The camp had been all over the papers the previous summer because some parents had complained about the uni-species staff in a camp advocating diversity and inclusivity. 

Stiles had talked and talked and _talked_ until Laura just couldn't take it anymore and had ended up telling him to show up a week later at the preserve and be ready to deliver. 

  
Of course he knew, as a way to seek equity, they needed a human. Any human would do. It wasn't a huge ego boost. But still, that human was him, it had to mean something. Stiles had been hired thanks to his sheer power of will. Humans were cool like that. 

She had even told him he might have some potential hidden somewhere, deep in there. Stiles would love to believe it.

  
Did he have any past experiences? No. Did he even like children? Also no, not particularly no. He was sure he'd love his own but children as a general idea, meh. Children were like people, he liked to get to know them before thinking he liked them. 

He hadn't thought it through, Stiles had leapt at the chance to be a counselor. That sounded like a real adventure.

Laura apparently didn't have the heart to tell him no. But, honestly, what could go wrong?

  
*-*-*

"Here is our new cutie pie!" Laura said as a way of greeting.

"Stiles." He felt a need to correct her. 

She might have forgotten that one piece of information from the long tirade in the parking lot. It wasn’t like Stiles was a usual name. It could easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted. He was a little tired of educating people on his name.  
His nickname was easier but not the easiest. He could have chosen something common but he wanted it to have meaning. He wanted to feel something when people called him and Stiles was his identity. He was proud of it, no matter how many times that stupid Jackson in high school called him copycat. Ah Jackson was bright enough to realize that Stiles was just a part of Stilinski turned into a nickname. That was the extent of his brain function though. 

"Cutie pie." She confirmed, sticking her tongue out playfully. 

Stiles spluttered at that, slightly flabbergasted. Was miss Laura Hale trying to sexually harass him? And on his first day no less? His dad was the sheriff of the town, she had to know that. Things like that wouldn’t fly. Oh no. Nobody would get a piece of this ass unless Stiles was one hundred percent on board. His dad taught him right. 

The guy behind her just huffed out, sounding annoyed. 

She smirked and introduced him as her brother, Derek. She then went over the camp policy as if her behavior hadn’t been absolutely inappropriate just now. She talked passionately of what it meant to teach for diversity, acknowledge and embrace all the differences. Each species was as important as the other. They were here to try to hopefully transform some of the most close-minded views still very much present in society. She hoped to make a difference, help the kids find a new way of thinking about all these differences and experiences, find a way to bring fairness and justice to the world. 

The Hale family had lived through quite a tragedy about ten years ago. They were only three left in what had been a big pack. But instead of going for revenge, they wanted action, a sense of purpose, a way to make the world a better place for the future. That was how they had gotten here.

"The world is increasingly diverse." Derek chipped in, his tone bland as if he was reciting something out of the brochure.

He might be, Stiles couldn't know, he hadn't actually read the brochure before getting hired.

  
Stiles' focus shifted to the man then. He had pointedly ignored him until now, because if he wasn't happy Stiles was here, then Stiles wasn't going to be happy to meet him either. An eye for an eye and all that.   
Except that fucking Hell now, Stiles' eye was twitching a little bit. 

It somewhat felt like time itself had frozen. The Earth had stopped turning. Maybe Stiles' heart was going into cardiac arrest. Would they have a crash-cart in a camp made for supernatural beings? Did they need to be shocked to be resuscitated? All valid questions because fuckedy fuck fuck, Laura's brother was extremely _extremely_ handsome. Hotter than boiling water, molten lava.

Sometimes life gave you lemons, and sometimes it was simply unfair and gave you a super hot co-counselor who clearly already hated your guts for just existing on his private property. Stiles would very much like to be on his private - Wowowow what was even Stiles' train of thoughts right now? He had barely met the guy.

Stiles was absolutely ridiculous and absolutely obvious. Laura actually smirked, it was faint but still there. Derek grunted something unintelligible.

  
Shit, Laura was talking again, Stiles forced himself to focus, blinked a little dazed as she went on saying, "Every person has something to contribute. Even you, Stiles, I know you have something to give. No matter how much you think of yourself as just the human token. Yes, I'm not going to deny we needed a human to keep the camp open this year, but something tells me you are much more than just a pretty face." 

  
Derek let out an unamused huff again. Words didn’t seem to be his friends.

Stiles was a little weirded out by the opposite vibes coming from the two of them. Laura was bright and flirtatious and Derek could only be described as gloomy. Super gloomy. Stiles wouldn't say no if he had the chance to put his mouth all over his gloom stick. Did Stiles have a weird undiscovered kink for grumpiness? Could that be a thing that worked for him? It surely seemed so.

  
See, he was already learning things about himself. He wasn't sure it was good news but it was new at the very least.

Was that what werewolves were supposed to be like? Just like fairies, maybe werewolves were only able to have one emotion at a time. Maybe they didn’t know how to be subtle. Maybe all of this meant something. It was as strange as it was unique and fascinating. He wondered what their uncle would be like, he wondered what it would be like with all the kids there in the morning.

Stiles took a second, feeling a little out of depth. He questioned his decision to come to Hale’s camp. His dad had grimaced, unconvinced by the whole plan. He hadn't said that his nineteen year old son had nothing to do at a supernatural camp but he also hadn't said that it was a great idea. It was probably a medium idea, very average. Not a death sentence but not amazing.

Stiles could settle for average. It was nice to go unnoticed sometimes.

He could leave if things turned sour. He was pretty sure he could still leave. Right? This wasn't some kind of ploy to kidnap and maim humans? He would have heard of that. His dad was the sheriff for god's sake. Stiles would have heard if something sketchy had been going on in the woods.

"Relax." Laura smiled again. It wasn’t a smirk this time, it felt more welcoming, friendlier. Almost motherly. "Derek is going to show you to your cabin. Right, Der?"

The man nodded stiffly and started moving without a word. Stiles scrambled off to follow him. Well, he guessed it the first meeting went well enough considering what he had to work with... They probably weren't going to become best friends any time soon but it would be okay. Stiles hoped it would be okay.

  
*-*-*

They walked in silence, slowly through the woods. Extremely slowly. This werewolf seemed unaware of the normal human speed, as if Derek felt compelled to walk at an excruciatingly slow pace to keep up with Stiles. A snail would win the race here. Stiles was going to lose his mind in the silence. The only noise was the sound of their footsteps on the mossy forest ground.

Stiles’ cabin was hidden in the woods in the back of camp, away from the other buildings. Supposedly to give him privacy. He didn’t know if he was supposed to be glad about that. 

The short walk which shouldn’t have been for than a few minutes somehow seemed to take forever. The cabin felt even more secluded looking at it from this side. He couldn’t even pinpoint the main building from here between the trees, such a perfect place for a good night of sleep or... maybe something like a gruesome murder.

Stiles had heard enough about cabins in the woods. He didn’t particularly feel like recreating the legend.

“Where are you guys sleeping?” Stiles asked with a degree of calmness which surprised even himself. He hadn't been sure he had it in him.

Derek’s head gestured back to the path they had just left. That was enough to confirm Stiles’ dark thoughts. The Hales stayed in the main building. Stiles would really be alone here in the woods.

“All the way back there?” Stiles squawked.

“The kids need close supervision.” was what Derek said, with an unreadable expression on his face. “As far as I know, you don’t.”

He left him there without another word in good serial killer manner.

Oh, to be nineteen and on your way to meet a certain to be violent death alone in the woods. What a thrill.

  
The kids were supposed to come in in the morning. The camp activities would start as soon as everybody was here. For now he was free to do as he pleased, take his time to unpack, put his things in the only piece of furniture in the cabin (outside the bed. Stiles should probably be grateful he at least had a bed). The minimalist interior made him suppose that born werewolves weren't into trivial and material things. 

What could compare to the freedom of running naked in the woods, right? Yeah, Derek Hale naked in these woods. Stiles knew for a wishful thinking fact that this was something that happened. 

He was only expected to show up for dinner today. Uncle Peter was cooking, Laura had told him with a grimace that could be interpreted as disdain toward the man or the food, Stiles couldn't really tell having neither met nor tasted either of them. 

When he walked back to the main site. He caught sight of Laura and Derek already setting the table outside. An older man, probably Peter, was walking out of the house with a hot looking dish.

"You found everything alright, Stiles?" Laura asked as soon as he was close enough for a human to hear.

"Yeah. Everything is great." He said.

It wasn't exactly a lie. It was more of an exaggeration of the truth. Laura's face told him she wasn't buying it, Derek's face seemed dead of all emotion, or constipated. Maybe both.

"That's the new recruit?" Peter arched an eyebrow and smirked. _"Yummy."_

"We already talked about this, you need to keep your dirty paws off the staff, Uncle Peter." Laura rolled her eyes. "This one isn't for you."

Derek scoffed but didn't add anything in Stiles' defense.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at all of them. They were playing him, he was sure of it. He wasn't great at trusting people but he knew how to read them quite well. In all truth, it was one of the main reasons why he didn't trust easily. People were a wonderful mess and not all of it was pretty.  
This, right here, was just a bunch of werewolves trying to haze him as if he was a freshman in college hoping to be accepted in a fraternity. He had to admit that he looked the part. He was still very much baby faced and to wolves he probably looked as innocent as a lamb.

  
Peter smirked, ignoring Laura's comment completely and walked around the table to bring Stiles a plate full of what was supposed to be food. As soon as it arrived in front of him, Stiles wanted to gag. The smell was even worse than the look.   
He had never seen something so indescribably unappealing in his life. As a teenager, saying that his relationship with food was passionate was an understatement. Stiles loved food, he needed food like he needed air. This kind of gastronomy wasn’t going to cut it.

Peter leaned to look at him, real close in Stiles' personal space.

"Bon appetit." Peter smiled, so close, looking a little crazy in the eyes.

Stiles only threw him a side-eyed glance in fear of actually turning and headbutting the man, or worse, accidentally kissing him on the lips. That was a thing that happened sometimes, Stiles had had his fair share of dodging kisses with Scott.

A quiet growl came out of Derek. He was probably starving and hoping for pizza just as Stiles was. There was no reason for him to go all wolf out at the moment.

"Uh, thanks, I guess." He replied quickly while trying to repress a shudder.

"I hope you enjoy. This is my best dish yet, if I can say so myself." Peter said sitting down at the head seat of the table in good patriarch manner.

So even werewolves could be misogynistic. Laura was the alpha, but Peter sat in the head of the family seat. It showed something about the relationships between them, Laura and Derek being siblings and together on the same side, Peter being the oldest -not wisest?-... unless seats at a table didn’t mean the same to born werewolves. Stiles had so many questions. He forced them all down because he didn't want to offend or come off as rude on his first day.

Laura smiled, her small dimples peeking out, her kindness flowing through her eyes as she looked at him. 

She was trying to make him feel better, more comfortable, he knew. 

But Stiles couldn’t wait for the kids to get here. Without them, this felt like a bad remake of the Addams family only with werewolves and everyone being more than a little creepy. He would wonder what was wrong with them, but he was sure the answer to that was the wrongness of Uncle Peter's cooking. He understood now what Laura meant by that grimace earlier. It was definitely something against the food, and her uncle. Both of them seemed to be grimace worthy.

He poked at the lump on his plate. The food looked horrendous. Gordon Ramsay's kitchen nightmares horrendous. 

How were the kids supposed to eat that for the summer? Health and nutritional values of food were very important to Stiles, he had been watching his dad's diet for as long as he could remember. This gooey nonsense in his plate wasn't meeting the requirement of food. This deserved an intervention.

"What is this?" He was trying to sound polite but failed by a mile.

He could see the corner of Derek's lips twitch. The crinkle on his forehead very present at the moment as he was trying to stay serious. 

"I mean, I am normally not too bad at guessing what is in the mystery meat at the cafeteria and even that one time my dad tried to cook for Thanksgiving but completely misread the recipe. You should have seen it, a complete disaster, but I mean, the basic idea of the dish was still somewhat recognizable. But here, yeah, I consider myself outwitted." Stiles shrugged awkwardly.

He had hoped to make it more polite by talking more but now it wasn't by a mile he was failing but more by a whole galaxy.   
Laura was openly laughing. Derek was staring at his plate with that same constipated expression but maybe ten times worse if that was even werewolfly possible.  
Peter was staring at Stiles, and if Stiles had any doubt about who was going to come to kill him in the cabin in the woods later that night or any time during the summer, he just found his suspect and gave him a good motive.  
Never insult a man's cooking, especially when the man in question is an adult, very adult and strong-looking werewolf. 

  
Stiles swallowed around the dryness in his throat. It was difficult. And without another word, brought a forkful to his mouth and forced himself to swallow the formless bit of what he supposed was meat. That was even more difficult. 

Oh god, what if Peter had gone into the forest to kill a rabbit or something? What if that was a cute little bunny turned into a strange stinky stew?

Stiles wouldn't survive the summer.

  
*-*-*

After dinner, Laura gave him the quick tour of the property. Tomorrow the kids would be coming in. To Stiles' surprise, Laura had planned for him to be partnered with Derek in most of the activities. He didn't have to plan anything, the whole program was already set. He really was just a token. All the hours he spent googling camp activities were just time wasted in the end.

"What you _do_ have to do", she said in confidence, "is keep Derek in check. He will want to push everyone to their fullest and bring the best in each of the kids. Sometimes, in doing so, it’s easy forget about the humans in the group."

Stiles nodded along as she spoke. Being human and not being quiet were two of his strongest assets. He might be able to bring some fun into the job. Stiles was a fun guy, he could make a party out of anything, that was his honestly fair opinion of himself.  
He’ll just have to stop looking at the guy as either a secret murderer or a secret porn star. There had to be a middle ground here where the real Derek Hale fitted.

"We didn't use to have humans when we started the camp years ago. We created the camp as an escape for all the shifters that didn't have anywhere to go. Humans don't always accept us so it was a sort of retaliation.” Laura admitted. “Except that at some point Derek and I were talking and it seemed counterproductive to make a camp only for shifters while humans had camps only for humans. That wasn’t the goal. The whole segregation part of society was what the Revelation wanted to fight. We decided to fight that too on our smaller scale. Old habits die hard though, I guess. Last year was the first time we actually had a significant percentage of humans. Most of the activities we had planned could have easily been modified to fit everyone but... let's just say, there is always a place for improvement. That improvement is you, Stiles."

"Me?" Stiles' eyebrows shot up.

"You, yes. You are the most overly human person I have ever met, you have a great potential. And you smell good. I'm sure Derek agrees." She added with a wink.

  
Derek what now?  
Stiles should send Laura the handbook of appropriate boss behavior because he was fairly positive that telling an employee that they smelled good wasn't on the list of top appropriateness. Stiles never thought he smelled bad, he was pretty sure he smelled okay for a teenager, but it was strange to have the confirmation coming from his boss. That had to be a wolf thing, but then again Scott had never really commented on Stiles' smell, maybe it was just a born wolf thing?

  
She enveloped him in a one armed hug, squeezing him tightly for a second. 

"You have a place here." She breathed out, softly, before stepping back and leaving him there on the path to his lonely cabin.

Something escaped him. He felt as if they were all in on some big secret that he couldn’t quite grasp.

  
Stiles felt jittery with all the strange foreign feeling all around. It was just so different from anything he experienced until now. Scott, bless his heart, could never live in a forest like this one, could never play into the raw nature of what he had become.

Stiles walked slowly back to his cabin, took in the fresh evening air. Crickets, an owl and the faint murmur of the water all the way down by the lake. Nothing too extraordinary, just the life of the forest as the sun set over the hill.   
It didn't feel so bad. He could get used to the tranquil feeling of the night. Nature calmed his nerves and transported him in a newly found peace.

Of course, his meditation had to be interrupted.

He startled at the sound of shuffling behind him. He squawked loudly, scaring off all the nightlife in the process, goodbye owl and crickets. Turning around too quickly, Stiles flailed his arms dramatically. He was just human, you see. He'd like to think he did it in defense and not in fear but even himself couldn't be fooled by his body reactions. 

He froze in shock when he realized the shuffling had been no other than Derek walking quietly behind him. 

Derek didn't move at all, except for his eyebrows which even in the darkening light were very communicative in that way Stiles hadn't realized eyebrows could work until today. Stiles automatically sprung a step back when Derek made the slightest move in his direction.

"Are you here to kill me?" Stiles couldn't help but ask. 

He was ridiculous, he knew, but he was exhausted and a little hungry still. Starvation didn’t help his brain to mouth filter. Starvation would make him spill out all his gut feelings, how he always worried about his dad, how he always felt unworthy in any given situations, how he missed his mom even if so much time had passed he could barely remember what a day with her felt like except in flashes of memories he wasn’t even sure he hadn’t created in his dreams. Yeah, it was never a good thing to leave Stiles hungry.

"Yeah because I don't have anything better to do than come kill you." Derek snorted. "I need to check the whole perimeter to make sure everything is safe for the kids tomorrow. We're going to get some younger ones this year. We can never be too careful, who knows what they could get into."

"Oh right, right." Stiles nodded, he felt compelled to add, "Do you need some company?"

Derek tilted his head to the side with a twitch of the eyebrows. "You want to go comb the forest? _You?"_

"Yeah, why? I'm not scared. Definitely not." Stiles lied. 

Derek grinned. Actually grinned. It might be mocking, but a grin was a grin and Stiles was here for it. Derek was hot when gloomy but he was on a whole new level when smiling. 

Stiles might be the one who was going to be arrested for sexual harassment on the workplace after all. He knew werewolves could smell arousal and he was just barely nineteen. College experiences hadn't done much to stop his flow of hormones. Nothing could hide the faint twitch in his pants right now.  
He was lust in his truest form when it came to Derek Hale. He had no way to truly explain it. The guy was hot, beautiful, mysterious, yes of course, Derek was all of that, but Stiles had never seen himself as the heroin of a teen romance novel. He had depth and layers dammit. He wasn’t falling for the first hot werewolf on his path. His journey to self-discovery wasn’t going to end because now he sort of dreamed about kissing some hot guy. 

"Go to bed." Derek pulled the rickety door of Stiles' cabin open. “We have an early start tomorrow.”

  
*-*-*

The morning sunlight flickered through the windows. Stiles blinked his eyes open groggily, a yawn escaping his mouth. He was waking up to the sound of tiny laughter echoing all the way through the forest.

Most of the kids were already on site when Stiles got up. It was early in the morning but apparently not early enough. Life was bubbling on the preserve ground.  
He quickly got dressed and ran to the main building to find Derek crashed under a pile of laughing kids, rolling around in the grass.

It was a sight to be seen, Derek and giggling little kids. Gone was the image of Derek wannabe murderer lurking in the woods for the perfect time to strike. The two images were irreconcilable. Worlds apart. Derek was smiling from ear to ear. That smile was absolutely genuine and Stiles’ heart clenched in his chest knowing that such a smile even existed. He wanted to see this happiness on Derek, always.

Their eyes met a second as some of the kids were stepping away, getting up, letting Derek catch his breath. He looked down, seemingly shy all of a sudden. Stiles would like to know what was in Derek’s heart. Some unknown attraction, not just physical, maybe metaphorical, something Stiles wasn't quite clear what, but something there.

  
Laura stepped forward, next to Stiles, waving her hand high up into the air. 

"Attention everyone! For all the kids who were already here last year who thought they already knew everyone and for all the first-timers, this is our newest addition, Stiles. Everybody say Hello!" 

Her voice carried over the chatter of the children, her tone, almost a sing-song, caught everyone’s attention. It wasn't the alpha's voice but Laura had a sort of natural authority that even Stiles felt deep in his bones.

  
"Hello Stiles!" came from the group of children in various degrees of interest.

"Stiles is human so all your human concerns may be directed directly to him if that makes you more comfortable. Basically you have choices now, I am still here for all the girl talk or any other talk, Derek is here for the... bro talk or just talk." She smiled. 

It took Stiles every ounce of willpower not to snort at that. Derek for bro talk, he'd like to see it in action. Although, he could admit to being too quick in his judgment. Derek probably wasn't so bad. The kids seemed to love him if the way most of them were still hugging or finding a way to hold his hands was anything to go by. Maybe Derek was better with kids than he was with grown-ups. 

"And Peter, yes Uncle Peter is still here, but he promised he would try to not be too freaky _if that's possible!_ " She said that just a little louder, turning her head in direction of the house where Peter was certainly hiding. 

"Alright. Drop your bags. Now it's time to move." Derek clapped his hands.

"Yeah let's go!" Stiles tried to use his professional kid related voice, which surprisingly turned out quite different than his normal voice but not in the way he had expected.

Strangely it was much higher, almost falsetto-ish. He cringed at himself at how embarrassing he sounded. Stiles didn't have any experience. A camp virgin, that was what Stiles was and he wasn't inconspicuous at all. He tried to salvage some of his image and accompanied his statement by the biggest, fakest smile he could muster up at the moment.

Derek rolled his eyes, sighing. Would Stiles dare say _fondly?_ Maybe not, probably not, fondness wasn't something that could ever be exchanged between the two of them. Derek’s eyes met his a minute. Stiles wished he could read minds.

“Only the first day, and you're already stripping that poor boy with your eyes. Calm down, nephew. Chillax as the young people say." Peter said as he came out of his place of hiding.

Stiles would like to know what Peter even meant. Derek wasn’t even staring at him all that much. Unless Peter meant one of the boys from the group of actual children? That was just wrong. Derek might be a little off in his social skills, but he didn’t give off predator vibes. Stiles would like to vouch for him but then who was Stiles to judge? He was only here since yesterday. They could all turn into monkeys on the full moon instead of wolves and Stiles wouldn’t know any better. 

Nobody even reacted to Peter’s comment except for Derek himself who clearly wasn’t amused by the joke. 

"Nobody says chillax." Derek's stare could kill.

Laura divided the children into two groups, making sure to include different species in both. She also made a point of putting some new addition where clans seemed to be forming in the returning kids. Stiles didn’t know much, but enough to know that Laura knew how to do her job and she was doing it right. 

"First group, you're with me today, we're going to start archery." She grinned. "Let's try to not do a repeat of last year and not kill any squirrels."

A loud whispered chatter erupted among the kids. "Kill?" _“Dead!”_ "Squirrel?" "Peter” “Cooked it.""Pretty sure he _ate_ _it_."

Stiles glanced around the campground and met Derek's eyes again. He found him watching again.

"Stiles and I will take the second group on a hike through the forest." Derek announced.

"Yeah." Stiles mumbled with a nod, red blossoming on his cheeks under the werewolf's gaze.

He decided to wink, just to cut the tension. Nothing more. Definitely not to flirt to see how it felt. Stile would deny it was flirting.

Admittedly a hike through the woods wasn't as cool as archery but the second group of kids still taunted the first one because they were the ones with Derek today. And "Derek is just so cool _nanananaaa!"_

  
Once all geared up with their backpacks full of essentials, water bottles for most kids and a big first-aid kit for Stiles and the handful of human kids, they were ready to go.  
Stiles wasn't even clear on which kid was human or not. He was trying very hard to guess who was who but to no avail. It was funny how it could go so easily unnoticed.They really looked the same to him. No wonder it took the Revelation for humans to actually know about the supernatural. These kids seemed to be all the same at first glance.

It was good to see that above all else they were just that after all, kids.

Stiles would have believed they were all the same species, all playing together. Except, maybe the growling at each other like they were in some sort of wildlife documentary on Discovery Channel would have been a little bit of a tell, but still.

They made their way up the trail. Derek in the lead, showing them the way. Stiles at the back, trying to not collapse after the first hill.

The kids were rowdy and loud. They might be loud enough to be heard all the way back into town. He'd have to ask his dad later when he'd call him to talk about everything. He had promised to call. Dad would surely appreciate that Stiles was mature enough to be here and do that and not get tangled up in search of a dead body.

Wait. 

_"Wait._ What's that smell?" Stiles called out to Derek. 

All the kids' heads spun right around to look at him. It was almost comical.

"What?" Derek frowned.

"It smells like a dead body." Stiles said.

"No, it doesn't," Derek sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers as if Stiles was more exasperating than all of the children combined.

"A dead body?" "In the woods?" "At Camp?" _"Awesome!"_ "That Stiles guy is so cool" "Should we be worried?" "Let's find the body!" "Noooooo" "YES!"

Stiles stopped, fascinated and somewhat amused by the whole group deep in their long confab. Kids were actually fun to be around, it seemed.

"There is no dead body." Derek put a stop to the verbal exchange.

"I'm sure that's what it is." Stiles countered.

" _It's not._ "

"Are you saying this because you haven't done a good job combing the forest last night?" Stiles put his hands on his hips to give himself more weight.

"What?" Derek frowned disbelieving.

"Did you get bored all alone in the woods and decided to call it quits? I knew I should have come with you." Stiles shrugged nonchalantly.

"Do you want to get fired?"

"You can't fire me. You need my human ass." He snorted. It was all fake self-confidence at that point but Stiles wouldn't let it go. He always was a stubborn child.

"He said _ass."_ "Stiles said ass." "Ass is a bad word." "My mom tells me to say butt." "Butt is the only right word." "Butt butt butt." 

Derek rubbed a hand down his face with a long suffering sigh. The relaxing hike in nature was turning into a nightmare but none of it was Stiles' fault, all of it was the murderer's fault for leaving a dead body in the woods and a little bit of Derek's fault for not finding it earlier. He was the one with the super sense of smell, wasn't he? Why was Stiles the one who had to smell it first? 

  
"Wait! Shush!" Stiles whipped around to face another direction. "I heard something."

"Dead bodies don't move." Derek deadpanned. "Let's move along."

"Yeah but murderers do." Stiles muttered to himself.

To himself, forgetting that most of the people around him could hear things happening miles away and would hear someone whisper two feet away without any trouble.

"Murderer!!" One kid exclaimed, followed by a succession of "Oh my God" "I don't want to die my first day of camp" "My dad knew this was a bad idea."

"There's no murderer and no body." Derek rolled his eyes. "But just because our new counselor is actually terrified of the forest, we're going to go take a look. Alright? Everybody good?"

Everybody nodded. Stiles even nodded. He wanted to deny he was terrified but then, his heartbeat hadn't calmed down. Everybody could hear it, even the human kids were looking at him with a strange expression on their faces.

"Good." Derek said, making his way down the hill, passing by each kid until he came to stand in front of Stiles. "Lead the way." He gestured at the off-trail patch of woods from where the sound had come.

"Me?" Stiles asked, voice coming out a little strangled.

"Yup. You." 

Stiles felt the challenge in Derek's eyes and he couldn't back down, not in front of all the kids and not in front of Derek himself. Stiles wasn't a frail little human no matter what these werewolves could think of him. He was determined to show them all what a Stiles was made of. A Stiles wasn't made of fear, a Stiles could definitely go comb the woods in search of a dead body and even a murderer if there was one. He wasn't scared. He would believe it if he repeated it enough times. Derek could just shut his pretty face and watch. Stiles was on his way to solve a missing person's case all by himself. 

"Do you even know where you're going or what you're looking for?" Derek asked as they strode along though grass and twigs. 

Stiles was too busy trying to not stumble and fall to talk. He had enough dignity at stake here without making a fool out of himself by falling on his ass.

  
The excitement and anxiety of the search was dying down, and some of the kids were playing, running and chasing each other. The murderer was obviously not in the woods anymore.   
The dead body stench though, that was a clear trail to follow. Stiles was a man on a mission. Derek was humoring him and kept pretending he wasn't smelling anything out of the ordinary. Asshole.

  
The small snap sound was heard again, closer this time.

Stiles looked up in the direction of the sound and there perched up on a tree branch was an animal, eyes looking right at him through the ball of thorns of his body. What the hell?!

Stiles startled with a scream. Of course he nearly fell into a bush. When had Stiles ever moved with grace?

  
Derek grabbed his shoulder suddenly, Stiles squeaked as he felt himself be pushed upward and held close against Derek's chest. Closer than needed, all his warmth sweeping through Stiles' shirt and tingling at the skin of his back.

"What is that?" Stiles wheezed. He pulled in a deep, calming breath as his lungs seemed to decide that it was safe to breathe again.

"That's a porcupine." Derek said, matter-of-factly.

"A _what?"_ Stiles asked, stumbling over a log. That forest was a real death trap. How was he even able to trip when he was still pressed up against Derek?

"As I was saying, there's no dead body. That stench is just a rodent. The joy of nature." Derek smirked. "Come on, kids, let's move."

Derek stepped away, leaving Stiles' back cold at the loss of him. Stiles definitely didn't think about what it would feel like to sleep with Derek's warmth against his back like that. Stiles' little spoon instincts were tingling in full force. He was a little spoon at heart and he was still very much waiting for a perfect big spoon to cuddle him at night. He doubted that Derek was a big cuddler or would ever want to cuddle with him though, but this little moment he just had was enough to have Stiles crave more. 

One of the kid had a sudden urge to laugh hysterically. "A porcupine? All of that for a porcupine? Oh my God? A PORCUPINE!!"

  
Stiles huffed out, unimpressed. It wasn't like any one of these idiots could have just easily told him the smell was a porcupine before they wasted all this time looking for it, right? Stiles refused to be ashamed. He was just looking out for them after all. The threat was a porcupine, _well good_. Best it be a porcupine than a dead body torn apart which would require years of therapy for all of them. 

  
They walked back to the trail to find a small group of kids who were all sitting in the shade of the trees to the side, talking between themselves as they stayed out of the midday sun. The dead body porcupine search hadn't been thrilling enough for their taste.

"The group should stay together." Derek reprimanded.

"The counselors shouldn't go flirt by themselves in the woods." One of the oldest kids retorted.

Stiles choked on the sip of water he was trying to drink from his nalgene. This time he actually fell in the bushes and rolled onto his side with a grunt. That was painful. 

  
Stiles? Stiles flirting with Derek? In what world would Stiles be flirting with one of the worst total fun-downers he ever met? Derek was really hot, sure, he also had a very beautiful smile, the kids loved him but were these reasons enough for Stiles to develop a crush? Maybe. Was it enough for him to start flirting? Maybe not. Plus, Derek had the gift to suck the life out of everything, Stiles was definitely not flirting.

Derek froze, his nose flared. Was he smelling something now? Something that wasn't a porcupine? With a deep scowl, his eyes roamed over the kids and all around the forest. He finally turned around to look at Stiles. Stiles stared back, mouth half open in question. So many questions. Derek’s expression was closed off and unreadable. Stiles wanted to let out a snarky comment but whatever was building up in him died when Derek turned back around.

"Hey kids!" Derek cupped his hands around his mouth, and hollered, "Let's go back to camp!”

His voice echoed against the trees, throughout the forest, all the birds and wildlife flew and scattered from the trees. It came out louder than needed as just a handful of children had wandered off and they were still close enough to hear them, even more so if they were shifters. 

They all found their way back quietly but for the soft chatter of the kids between themselves. The hike had been cut short by Stiles’ antics. He was still exhausted by the time they arrived at the main building.

Derek was moving passed him but Stiles stopped him.

"Hey big guy.”

Derek turned around. Stiles could laugh at the fact that Derek recognized himself in that description. Derek wasn't even that big, he was only slightly taller than Stiles, it had just something to do with the muscles. They were lean and well-defined, Stiles could appreciate the aesthetics of Derek Hale in a tight t-shirt.

“I hurt my hand." Stiles pouted defiantly, showing Derek where his palm and fingers were scratched and red from falling in the bushes. “This is your fault, you know.”

Derek’s face went from one of concern to one of annoyance and bafflement, the familiar scowl finding its way to that handsome face of his once more. He rolled his eyes so hard Stiles was sure he would have hurt his neck had he been human.

He sighed loudly and tried to convey something with his eyebrows that Stiles was very happy to answer with his own. Derek raised an eyebrow, questioning. Stiles raised an eyebrow, leering. Then, Derek smirked in that predator spotting a prey kind of way as he grabbed Stiles’ hand and slowly brought the scratched fingers to his mouth and sucked on them. 

Stiles gasped, his eyes widening as he stared at Derek’s lips closing around his fingers. That wasn’t appropriate Stiles repeated to himself. Not appropriate at all, but somehow he wanted more of it, so much more of Derek’s mouth sucking on him. Oh God, now he was the one who wasn't being appropriate. What would his dad say about this if he knew?

It took him a lot longer than he should have to pull his hand away. He had to fight himself to not lean closer to kiss Derek’s mouth and slip his tongue where his fingers had been. Shit. Stiles wanted to kiss Derek, he wanted to push him against a tree and kiss that pretty mouth and bury his fingers in Derek’s hair and show him what humans could do, what Stiles could do. There was a little bit of competition in him, needing to prove something to himself and to everyone else. There was also a strong attraction toward that man in front of him, and something more he couldn’t quite name. Something deeper.

When Stiles came back to his senses, Derek’s demeanor had changed as he was looking in the distance at the forest. He was focused on something Stiles couldn't see or hear, not even smell this time. 

“Everything ok?” Stiles asked. 

Derek didn’t reply for a long minute before nodding quickly and moving passed Stiles, almost shoving him out of the way.

Derek Hale was an asshole.

*-*-*

  
"I heard of your exploits during the hike." Laura came to him at dinner.

Stiles looked up from where he was filling what seemed like the thousandth plate of food. Laura's laugh was like wind chimes, light, and communicative Stiles couldn't help but join in. 

"I'm sure the kids are making it out to be way worse than it actually was." Stiles shrugged.

"Didn't you go hunting for an invisible murderer?" Laura smirked.

"Yeah... okay I plead guilty. There was no murderer and no dead body."

"Let's keep it that way!" She clapped her hand on his back, so hard he almost doubled over, choking.

Wolves were rough.

  
When he went to the table, the kids were in deep conversation about dead bodies, dead squirrels and dead spiders. Something about death lurking in the woods.

"I'm sure Stiles wouldn't kill a spider, would you Stiles?" one of the girls -Emma? Amy?- asked him.

"Uuhh." Stiles was a slightly taken aback by the question. "Noooo, of course, I always treat spiders in a very humane way."

"Why are you lying?" Emma/Amy asked him with a frown.

"Okay, yeah, Smartypants, the truth is that I don't always. Sometimes a guy gotta scream and smash the spider with a magazine to feel better about the world." Stiles admitted, there was no use lying about anything around this camp apparently.

"Peter always smash his big boot on the spiders when we find any... we can never keep them in the cabin. It's so sad because I love spiders... but Peter..."

"Peter _ate_ a spider once." Another kid chimed in. 

More than a terrible cook, and possibly a terrible person, Peter seemed to be the big bad wolf of this place.

  
Peter appeared out of nowhere, smiling like a maniac. "You called?"

He was probably stalking them and eavesdropping on every conversation. That guy was a creeper if Stiles had ever known one. 

"Nobody called no." Stiles frowned.

"Oh Stiles, your honesty is so refreshing."He grinned. "I know why my niece decided to add you to our family. I mean, _our staff_." 

"Right." Stiles narrowed his eyes.

"It's time for dinner. I surpassed myself again. I hope you'll enjoy." Peter smirked.

That smirk was all too knowing. Peter was trying to poison them or something creepy like that, Stiles could swear he felt the creepiness crawl on his skin when Peter was around. As soon as Peter was gone, the kids started complaining about the food and exchanging hidden snacks like an underground market of sweets. Stiles was quick enough to snatch a couple of Oreos.

The food was disgusting as expected. That was all Stiles wanted to say about it, because if he started he would channel his inner Gordon Ramsay again and would find a poetic tirade of curses to describe this dish.   
Derek and Laura were talking in hushed tones on the other side of the table, so low that even the supernatural kids didn't seem bothered by their conversation. Stiles couldn't help but stare at them. It felt like he was missing a piece of the puzzle again. Damn being human sometimes.

  
They waited until it was time to go build the fire for the evening activities. They kept to a pretty strict schedule all things considered. Children of all species needed habit, finding reassurance in a tidy lifestyle. Stiles was happy to follow along, he didn't need to get his blood pumping and rushing several times a day. Calm and boring would do just fine.

Stiles went to gather twigs in the forest while Laura was busy with the kids. He came back with more twigs than anyone should have to carry. Of course, he had brought it upon himself when about three feet into the clearing, he stumbled on a rock and all the twigs fell to the ground in front of everyone. All the children laughed as if Stiles was the camp clown.

Derek came over to help, frowning but with that tiny twitch on the corner of his lips. "There is no competition here. You can just be human. Be yourself. You don't need to be anyone else."

It was nice and all but how was that helping? Stiles wanted to do his part and if that part was bringing back twigs he was going to put his heart into it no matter how human he was. They should get used to it because Stiles wasn't going to quit or not be himself. He wasn't going to play the useless human token.

  
"Thanks for the advice." Stiles snorted. "I can handle myself just fine."

"I know that. How about you make up the evening activity to show everyone what you're made of?" Derek offered as they were walking back to the main site.

"Really?" Stiles' perked up in interest. His heart rate picked up at the thought. Stiles dreamed of being in charge, important for something. Derek couldn't believe that Derek of all people was the one offering him to take over.

"Go for it." 

As soon as the words had left Derek' mouth, Stiles jumped on the table and called out to the kids and announced, "I am now your alpha and you are all at my command!"

  
This statement caught everyone's attention. Derek definitely had no idea what he had just offered. Stiles was going to get this party started.

Laura started laughing again. "All Hail, Alpha Stiles!"

The children cheered. They all started running in a big game of sharks and minnows, werewolf style. They were having the time of their lives. Everyone was laughing and Stiles could barely breathe. That was finally what he had expected camp to feel like. He smiled at Derek who was looking at him. Stiles was most probably red in the face, sweaty and breathless. Definitely human looking but he didn't care at the moment. This was fun.

  
Laura and Derek made the fire quickly. Stiles saw them talking again, looking around the woods. He could almost swear he saw Laura's eyes glow red for a second.

"Hi." Derek walked in the middle of the war zone. "Hi, I'm Derek. Could I talk with Alpha Stiles for a second? I don't know if you remember. I'm your boss." 

"I remember." Stiles pulled out his tongue. He could have felt sheepish if he hadn't been in a circle of about thirty children pretending to be a pack of wolves with Stiles as their Alpha. "Although, Laura is the boss, and you are just my colleague."

"Just your colleague." Derek echoed, eyebrows twitching.

"You want to join me in the fun?" Stiles smiled and Derek answered it with a smile of his own. "You will have to play by my rules, you know. I don't know if you're up for that yet."

"Just colleagues. Right." Laura snorted from where she was still tending the fire.

Derek and Stiles both startled at the same time, and then looked at each other in surprise like two kids caught red-handed.

  
The fire was slowly dying down later that night. Stiles was finally feeling the camp energy. Under the stars, with a s'more in his hands, that was the life. The kids in the camp were most definitely not sleepy and started playing tag between themselves.

  
The moon was nearly full, Stiles realized as he looked up at the sky. It was only missing a slim sliver. The kids seemed already jittery enough as it was, Stiles would soon have to live his first real full moon day and night surrounded by werewolves. He couldn't imagine the energy needed to survive a day like that.

  
Laura asked him about his home and family. They already knew about his mom so he didn't have to go into details which was good, just like he didn't need them to go into the details of what happened to their pack. Beacon Hills was a small town like that. Everybody knew.  
He talked about college and life in general.  
Derek said very little but somehow Stiles felt heard which wasn't a feeling he encountered a lot with his friends. Here in the darkness with the crickets singing in the background, the crackling of woods in the fire, fireflies hovering above the grass, it was different that drunken confessions on the couch of the fraternity that Scott had joined freshman year of college. Scott wasn't a great listener. 

"We're happy to have you." Laura concluded. Stiles felt it. 

*-*-*

  
When it came to being lights out time, Stiles was dead on his feet. He couldn't wait to go to bed and didn’t complain about having to go to bed in the cabin. He was almost half-asleep when he heard some commotion outside.

  
"Maybe they're gone." Derek said.

"Perhaps but we shouldn't be so hopeful yet," Laura replied. "Let's keep our eyes and ears open."

Stiles went to peek out the window just in time to see them breaking into the clearing on their way back to the main building.

Something was definitively off. Between all their private conversations and the way they had to scan over the whole camp to make sure everything was in its place, they were obviously trying to hide something. Stiles wasn't sure what to do about that knowledge, or lack thereof. 

*-*-*

  
Stiles felt the nervousness of their secret grow and grow as the days passed. Something was happening and the two wolves were keeping Stiles out of it as if he was one of the kids.

They were all staying close to the clearing for some reason. No more hike in the forest. No treasure hunt. No nothing. Just basic art and craft activities and some lessons about control when the full moon finally came.

The kids were bored, even Stiles was bored. 

So he had an idea. 

If he wasn’t allowed in on the secret. Then he couldn’t do anything about it. He had tried to subtly ask, he had tried to bluntly ask them to tell him what was going on and he even tried to sneak up on them when they were having secret conversations. Nothing worked. Not even playing into that flirtatious side of his relationship with Derek, no amount of eyelashes batting or cute pouty lips had made the werewolf admit to anything. Stiles was stuck there in his ignorance. 

He wasn’t stuck in his boredom. 

When everyone was asleep one night, he sneaked out of his cabin, ran to his jeep and left the camp as quietly as possible. 

If they weren’t allowed to leave the clearing to have some real fun then the fun was going to come into the clearing. Stiles was ready to provide the kids and the adults with hours and hours of good, old-fashioned fun. It was summertime after all. That meant one thing in Stiles’ mind : water parks. He used to go to the water park every summer with Scott and his mom when they were little. It changed when Scott got bitten. He had more furry things on his mind, like find an anchor and deal with his intense feelings for his girlfriend and all his questioning about mates and marriage. 

Stiles missed the inconsequential fun of the water park. He was going to do his best to recreate it.

He drove to the 24h store. He was sure to find what he needed there. There was no need to get something fancy or spend a fortune.  
He could almost hear his dad’s voice in his head telling him that a job was supposed to earn him money not have him spend his savings on extracurricular activities. But well, Stiles was stubborn and when he had an idea, he couldn’t really let go of it. 

A homemade slip and slide was going to happen in the clearing or Stiles wasn’t a Stilinski. He wasn’t going to disgrace his name and fail to bring on the fun this summer. The two grumpy wolves could worry about their wolf issues, Stiles Stilinski was going to make summer great with or without some wolves' help.

Making a water slide wouldn’t cost more than the price of an inexpensive camping tarp. Stiles would have gone home to steal his dad’s camping gear but the man was a hoarder and knew exactly if something moved in his garage. No need to call the police for a missing tarp, especially since dad was the sheriff and wouldn’t need to investigate very far to know the culprit. 

  
As soon as he had stepped into the store he beelined for the camping gear aisle. Plastic sheeting or any camping tarp would do the job just fine. He found the biggest one available and grabbed a couple. It was going to be awesome. Stiles knew that for a fact. He wasn't even biased because it was his own idea. It was just fact that water slide could never go wrong. 

Then he went to get the magic component. Something to make it extra slippery. Obviously water was already nice and fun but Stiles wanted to create an event, something to be remembered in the years to come, create the legend of the Stilinski slide. He needed to make it grandiose, have the kids fly through the forest by the only force of the slide. The kids wouldn't be able to really slide without a little something something.  
Stiles didn't even think twice or look at the price tag before grabbing the biodegradable dish detergent. He wasn't going to create a pollution debate on the preserve. Stiles was all for the planet so no way he was buying the cheapest stuff. He got a whole box of bottles of the most organic of the green products. Nothing toxic in there. Derek would be proud. 

He was more ecstatic to set it up than he was going to bed on Christmas night when he was a kid. Just something about the expectation of it all.

He parked his car a short walk from the main building and the children's cabins. He wanted to do this in secret. He had practiced stealth since he had been here, trying to sneak on the kids to scare them and he was getting pretty good at being unnoticed if he wanted to be. He could confidently do this surprise and actually believe it would be an actual surprise for everyone. 

  
That small slope in the clearing was going to be perfect, not too steep but just steep enough to make it fun while not too dangerous. There were some human kids in the mix, Stiles kept reminding himself. Some scrapped knees wouldn't hurt much, but there was no need to make the differences in healing between the kids too obvious. It wasn't about creating jealousy, it was about having some really slippery fun in the sun.

He went to spread the tarps, all too aware of all the noise he was making. Damn it, he needed to be inconspicuous. He tiptoed to the side of the main building to find the garden hose. He wanted everything to be ready to go in the morning. He almost wanted to give it a test ride but that would definitely be waking the whole camp up if he did so he would just have to hope the whole thing wasn't going to be a big fail.

_"What are you doing?"_

Stiles startled. A hand found his mouth to keep his shout in. Luckily it was his own hand and not Derek's, Derek who was blocking out the moon as he stood over him. Stiles threw one quickly glance at Derek's hands, just to make sure they were there. To his surprise, Stiles saw some claws reflecting off the moonlight. Derek's claws disappeared in an instant, as if Derek had only realized that they were still out.

"Dude!" Stiles whispered vigorously. "What's that about?"

"I could ask you the same question. You're the one out here in the middle of the night..." Derek said with a studying look. "doing what exactly? Stealing a garden hose?"

"Yeah that's exactly what I'm doing. Stealing. I'm a stealing thief in the middle of the night and I go for garden hoses. I have garden hoses from all the places I robbed. Tons of them in my Dad's garage, he can't even park his cruiser anymore. Just hoses everywhere. Can you leave now? Go back to bed or whatever hole you came from." Stiles rolled his eyes.

"No." Derek said sternly.

"What?"

"No, I'm not leaving you here."

"Oh, I see. You don't trust me. You actually think I'm up to no good and I need a chaperon." Stiles rolled his eyes. Hard.

"Are you up to any good?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. I am up to all the goods. I am the master of the goodie goods." Stiles grinned. Derek let out a long sigh. "I'm building a DIY water slide for the kids, that's why I need the hose, and why you need to leave me alone. Thanks for ruining the surprise."

"You, _what?"_ Derek looked comically confused.

"You know, water, sliding, fun? You guys have been secluding us all in the clearing for days and you're not telling us shit. What is that about by the way? You are even grumpier than what I thought was possible. Even the kids can feel it, I mean, of course they can feel it, most of them have super senses. What did you guys expect? We're not oblivious, it's not right to treat us like that." Stiles wondered why he was still trying. He was tired to be shot down.

"I just want everyone to be safe." Derek said after a moment. He swallowed visibly, seemingly distressed by having to say the words out loud.

Stiles softened, dropped the hose and put a hand on Derek's forearm instead. Maybe Derek was finally ready to talk? "What's going on?" Stiles dared ask.

"Everything will be alright." Derek said looking in the distance.

"Derek, please, cut the bullshit." Stiles shook his head with a grimace. "I know something is going on, just like I know Laura didn't hire me because I was so incredibly convincing. There's something more to it and all their innuendos are less than subtle. So, please, enlighten me. On everything going on here."

"We needed a human."

"I know that. That's the one thing I actually know." Stiles was getting annoyed for real now.

"Shut up, do you want me to talk or -"

"Yes, yes, go, talk, go." Stiles gestured for him to go on.

Derek stared at him with his death glare again. Okay, Stiles was shutting up now. He pulled his lips in, mouth in a tight line so no word would escape him.

"We received threats. Real threats. We thought adding a human to the staff would be enough to calm whoever was behind them. It wasn't." Derek admitted, averting his eyes on the last words.

_"Oh."_

"About the other thing. I'm sorry." Derek looked more and more mortified. "You smell good."

"You're not the first one to tell me that." Stiles knew he was blushing, he hoped the obscurity was enough to cover it.

"Meaning you smell... right." Derek glanced back at him before looking away again. "Born wolves, we have, hum, a certain scent to look for in, uuuhhh, potential partners. In families, there's a common denominator in these scents."

"Meaning Laura -" Stiles was starting to pieces together now. 

"Was able to tell. Yeah." Derek nodded quickly.

"Okayyy... uhh. Just. Just. _Just_ to make things perfectly clear." Stiles stuttered. It was a lot of information to get all at once in the middle of the night. Stiles was sleep deprived on top of everything. "Hum... It's not Laura, but it's not - please tell me it's not Peter. Because I will literally run out of this camp right now, I'd even abandon my jeep and I don't abandon this jeep ever, but I won't accept smelling like perfect snack to Peter."

"It's not Peter." Derek said, looking down again.

"Okay."

"I'm sorry. It's just-"

"It's fine, Derek. I mean, I can't smell it, but I can sense it." Stiles felt shivers run through him because now that he thought about it this was exactly what he had felt all along. This indescribable pull toward Derek, it had a name in the werewolf world. "And if we're here in this camp, in actual danger, we should make the most of it. I'm not saying it's the apocalypse and we should get married but I think you should kiss me. If you want." He grinned, licked his lips automatically at the thought of kissing Derek, finally kissing him because if anything and everything was leading to that brush of Derek's lips against his, God, Stiles wanted it.

Derek looked at him, his eyes locking on Stiles' lips. The moon shone overhead, illuminating his face, his soft eyes gleaming brightly in the moonlight.

"Are you gonna do it? You should." Stiles licked his lips again, on purpose this time. "Or maybe I should. Yeah." He took the small step still separating them.

Derek frowned. _"Stiles."_

"Do you not want to? Don't I smell good enough? Do I need to submit first?" Stiles raised his eyebrows in defiance.

He had decided to be assertive about this, if he was to follow Derek's lead they might still be there tiptoeing around each other on the last day of summer. Stiles wasn't here to waste all that time if he could be kissed instead.

Derek shook his head fondly, it was really fond this time, no question about it, before grabbing Stiles by the back of his neck and bringing their mouths together. The kiss seemed to convey a lot of meaning for some reason, everything Derek could not say in words maybe. Stiles let himself be kissed for a second before sliding his hands up to clutch at Derek’s shoulders. He pulled him closer, so much closer, bringing some heat into the kiss. Stiles was a teenager after all, kissing was meant to be intense.

They stopped after a while. Stiles couldn't say how long, his lips felt raw and swollen. He couldn’t seem to find the will in himself to move, so charged with desire for the man pressed against him. Eyes still closed, he could only stand there breathing him in for a while, dragging his fingers down Derek’s stomach, feeling at the muscles there, wishing for so much more.

Stiles sighed. A grin not leaving his face, he felt so good right now. "Alright, now that we got this out of the way. Can you please tell me who is threatening us?"

Derek nuzzled his cheek. "How about we just finish that water slide and not talk about it?"

Stiles grumbled under his breath, looking to the side where a slight breeze was blowing through the grass. "We can do both."

Derek gave him an appraising look and then shook his head in surrender. 

*-*-*

  
The jubilation in all the children's eyes was absolutely worth the trouble of setting up the water slide. It hadn't been much trouble at all in all honesty and the few kisses he got from Derek as they both busied themselves setting up the garden hose were exactly the kind of rewards Stiles was craving. 

Stiles was messing with the tarp, sticking his fingers in the loops as he waited for the kids to get into their swimsuits. Everything was in place, the two tarps on the ground, the garden hose sprinkling nice cool water down the hill. 

  
He had a big grin on his face (that water slide was going to be glorious), when Laura walked over.

  
"Guys. I'm happy things are working out. But you do know that most of the kids can smell what's going on. Right?" Laura scrunched up her nose at them. "As alpha and head counselor I am required to ask you two to please stay professional in front of the kids."

"Right. We're meant to be examples." Derek said in all seriousness, his hands still ghosting over Stiles' hips.

It sounded like the brochure again. Only this time, somehow, his tone sounded suspiciously playful. He clearly wasn't laughing though. Stiles couldn't tear his eyes away from him, he would have seen it if Derek was laughing.

Stiles snorted, letting his arms fall by his side instead of reaching for Derek's teasing hands. "I'm not sure it's a bad thing? You know, that's a good life lesson : make love, not war?"

There was a low rumble in Derek's throat as he stared at Laura. "Why are you looking at me like that? You were the one who brought him home. And, you very well know there was no love making involved."

Laura made gagging faces at them at the mention of love making and walked off where she had set up her activity for the morning. It was supposed to be body painting but sorry Laura, nothing could beat a water slide.

Unless...

"Wait, Laura!" Stiles cheered at his own idea.

"This can only end badly." Derek said as he followed his back to the main building.

"Don't touch my hair, I don't want any paint!" One of the kid joked in a high falsetto, laughing.

"Oh my God, your Laura is so on point!" Stiles laughed, he tried his best to do startlingly accurate impression as he added, " _Come on, kids_. Don't be mean. I only want you to behave!"

Some kids were busy painting some fake fur on him. This was the closest to an actual wolf he had ever felt. They were all giggling and making faces. 

"I'll never get it all out. I'm going to freeze in the shower because you little menaces take all the hot water!" Another kid joined the impersonation game. 

Laura called them out from where she was busy on the other side of the clearing. "I heard that!"

Derek walked by, he took one look at Stiles before letting out a soft chuckle. There was so much paint everywhere. It was kind of the point of body painting, but the kids had gone all out. There was paint of every different color spread out on his body and his hair. He could feel some sliding down his face, down his back while Laura and Derek were still clean and pristine looking. That was what pack hierarchy had to look like, Stiles narrowed his eyes at them.

"They've written something on your back." Derek smirked.

"What is it?" Stiles squawked.

"Don't tell him!" "No, Derek!" "It's a _secret!"_ "You're never supposed to tell other people's secrets!"

"You heard them. My lips are sealed." Derek shrugged. Did he really think he looked innocent? That sweet asshole. Stiles wanted to kiss him again, and take that opportunity to dirty him a little, smear some nice colors on his body.

"I have something better to do with your lips than seal them. You can bet on that." Stiles said, a promise and a threat at the same time.

When the kids were all painted, some in animals, some in superheroes, some in flowers, they all went down the slippery slide. The whole clearing turned an array of colors as the paint dissolved in the soapy water, creating at first a nice little rainbow of colors quickly turning into a muddy brown mess. It didn't stop them from having fun. 

Derek was grinning, glowing in the sun, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Stiles ran a hand through his wet colored hair, pulling them back, and forced himself to look away and get back to the essential matter at hand here. His job wasn't to gawk at Derek. His job was to create the most fun Hale's Summer Camp had ever experienced. 

Listening to all the kids laughing as their slipped and crashed down the hill, Stiles was sure the slide was a success.

  
*-*-* 

  
It took a moment for Stiles to realize something was wrong. It took a lot longer than he would have liked. It was only when Amy, that one little werewolf girl, came to him when he was scrambling on his thousandth walk up the hill that he realized she was were on the verge of tears for what seemed like no reason at all.

Nobody had gotten hurt, nobody had said any bad words. But this little girl was obviously distressed for some reason.

"What's wrong?" He crouched down next to her. "What's going on, Amy? Talk to me."

He was still half covered in paint and absolutely drenched. It wasn't the most professional look he could have hoped for his first emotional scene here. He was supposed to be the human consultant but he guessed he could do that too. He could be useful to werewolves too. He tried to look around for Derek or Laura or Hell, even Peter, to make sure he wasn't stepping on any toes.

They weren't around. Uh. Why weren't they around?

Some of the other supernatural kids gathered around him. 

"Stiles!" "Where is everyone?" " _Something's wrong!"_ "Yes!" "I can feel something is off too!" "What do you feel?" "What do you know?" " _Have you heard it too?_ " 

"Wait, wait! Everybody slow down!" Stiles shouted a little louder than needed. "Can someone please explain to me what is going on?!" 

"It's Derek." One girl said.

"And Laura." Another one added.

"They're in the woods, somewhere."

"In the woods?" Stiles stared off into the distance. God, he hoped for some super senses right now. "And you can hear them?"

"Not anymore..."

That sounded bad, didn't it?

Stiles tried his best to plaster his best and fakest smile on his face again. "Alright. It's nothing to worry about. Let's finish the water slide activity and put everything away before they make it home. Everything will be fine. Don't worry."

Some kids eyed him suspiciously, he wasn't really selling his speech but as long as he calmed some of them down, Stiles wasn't losing everything. They did a couple more slides each but the mood had shifted and Stiles really couldn't blame them. His mood wasn't in it either anymore.

They pulled the garden hose back where it belonged and put the tarps up to dry between some trees in the sun.

Lunch time was soon approaching. Peter wasn't here either. Stiles was absolutely alone with the children and none of it felt right.

Food was now his job apparently. Taken out of context, it wasn't a terrible thing since nothing could be worse than Peter's cooking. Even the kids agreed, it was truly amazing and telling of the good spirit Laura and Derek brought to the camp that the kids wanted to come back and eat that dreadful food summer after summer. After attacking the kitchen and leaving a mess in his path, Stiles managed to set up a sandwich station and the kids came to help themselves. 

He was still going out of his mind here. The kids had found some sense of peace and everything was going relatively smoothly with some food in their bellies. The one problem was that the Hales were missing, Derek was missing. Unfortunately, Stiles could guess why they all disappeared in an instant. 

The threat had to be on the move and they had to stop them before the hunters got into camp. It could all end in a massacre if Derek, Laura and Peter didn't manage to put an end to everything. Shit, it would already be a massacre if any of them didn't come home in one piece. Again Stiles wondered about the years of therapy that would be needed if anything were to happen. Surely the dead body of a beloved camp counselor would be even worse than a random dead body smelling like death in the woods. All of it was terrible and there was just no way for Stiles to be more helpful than just stand there by the lettuce and make sure the kids took some veggies for their sandwiches.

That was just not right.

Stiles heard some rustles of leaves by the main building. He threw a quick glance and saw Laura trying to sneak back into the house. Her clothes were ripped and bloody.

"Soo!" Stiles clapped his hand to keep everyone's attention when he saw some tiny noses perk up trying to catch the new scent. "Who loved the water slide? Who would like to vote for the name and make this an annual thing? I vote for the Stilinski Slide. I think that should be the name. Is there another contender? No? What? Patrick, you were saying something? Oh sorry I can't hear you. Is everyone okay for Stilinski Slide? Yes?"

The kids were laughing at him, that was the perfect distraction. Not one of them seemed to have had the time to realize anything was out of the ordinary. If any of it could be considered ordinary right now.

As soon as they were busy talking about something else, Stiles quickly ran to the building to see Laura.   
She was alright. Thank God. He didn't even get a chance to get a word out before she started talking, the door barely closed behind him.

"Everything's under control. Don't worry, Stiles. _Everything is_ _fine."_ She said in that alpha tone which was as strong as it was motherly.

"Is it? Is everything under control? Fuck, Laura, you look like you almost got ripped to shreds." Stiles exclaimed.

"Keep it down, will you? I'll heal." It was more a growl than a voice. Her nose flared as she looked at him, red in her eyes. "Go take care of the kids."

The whole wolf instinct was clearly not completely turned off at the moment. Stiles didn't even flinch. He wasn't a wolf and her alpha had no power over him. Her wounds still spilling a little blood though, these had an effect on him. He just walked out without another word.

Where was Derek?

It took Laura about twenty minutes to walk out of the house looking fresh and dandy as if nothing had happened. Stiles could barely believe his eyes. She pointedly ignored him and went to busy herself with the kids. 

Stiles couldn't focus on anything but the fact that Derek was still missing and he didn't know anything about his well-being or the extent of the threat still being a threat at the moment. The day seemed interminable. He kept looking around hoping to see a familiar silhouette walk out of the woods. Nothing happened. 

Nothing happened and it was lights out time already. The kids asked about Derek, of course they asked about Derek. Laura only said that everything was fine. Stiles didn't believe her even if the little shifters didn't cry out liar when she said it. 

He wanted to cry out liar. It felt like a lie.

Stiles was sitting quietly across from Laura. The light from the fire washed over everything, it all could have been a really nice evening under the stars but everything in him was screaming that it was far too strange, far too wrong. He should just turn in for the night but Derek wasn't here and that was not right in any kind of universe out there.

Derek had to be alright or Stiles would never feel okay again. He just got him, he would not accept losing him.

*-*-* 

  
Stiles was in his cabin, tossing and turning and definitely not sleeping when he heard creaking noises outside. That definitely was coming from the little steps in front of his door.  
He jumped out of bed in a second at slammed the door open. It crashed loudly as it collided with the wall. Stiles wasn't here for discretion.

"Shit. Derek. Never do that again!" He shouted without taking the time to really assess the situation here.

Derek was here and that was all there was to it. Just Derek, here, alive enough to stand - albeit weakly- on his doorstep.

"I'm happy to see you too." Derek smiled a shaky little smile.

Stiles stopped to look at him then. His clothes were as ripped and bloody as Laura's had been but his body was already healed, no visible cuts and only dried flakes of blood on his fresh new skin. 

"Shit." Stiles sighed as he took a step back and let Derek step inside the cabin. "What happened?" 

Derek came close into his space, breathing him in again as if smelling him was calming, relaxing the tension on his shoulders. Stiles cupped Derek's jaw in his hands and forced him to look into his eyes.

"Hunters." Derek said.

"Are they gone? Has Peter come home too? Are you alright?" 

"Yes." Derek closed his eyes.

Stiles didn't have the heart to ask him to clarify.   
The right way to answer three questions would have been to give three answers. Stiles was hoping for a "yes, yes and yes" kind of answer. One single word was only answering one question and he wasn't even sure which one it was. Was yes supposed to be enough to stop the turmoil in Stiles' heart?

"Why did you have to go off like that? Why didn't you just call the cops? Hunting is fucking _illegal_ now. There are laws to protect us - I mean you - protect _you._ There's no need to put you guys in more danger than necessary. Don't you value your own life? Do you need to be a self-sacrificing ass? Don't you ever dare to do it again. I swear to God, I'll come and I'll kick your ass if you -"

"I'd do it again. I always -"

"Shut up." Stiles said as his body efficiently shut Derek up with a kiss. 

Derek melted into it, letting himself be pushed around without clear direction at first. Stiles' body needed to move, needed to be in control even if it was just in that tiny unimportant way which was to push Derek around in his little cabin in the woods, guide him until they ended up in the bathroom, into the shower stall.  
Derek let himself be pushed and pulled and just couldn't take his eyes away from Stiles, or only for the few moments he found the strength to nuzzle down Stiles' neck. 

It felt like a cleaning, a cleansing was needed before anything else. 

  
The shower always kind of freaked Stiles out ever since he had gotten here, having to get naked here alone in the cabin in the woods, so far off from everyone else. It wasn't extra clean, it was also inhabited by bugs most times. Right now, it felt right to push Derek inside, to back him in there, letting Derek claw at the waistband of his boxers.

Yes, they were on the same wavelength.

Maybe some of it was the adrenaline of the fight, maybe it was just the near death experience for Derek and fear of losing something before even having it for Stiles. He just felt like there was no more time to waste, no more potentiality in all of this and mostly certainty. Stiles couldn't quite grasp what it all meant but it didn't matter at this very moment. He just wanted to feel Derek alive against him. 

Stiles reached for Derek's ripped jeans and pulled them off. Soon they were pushing their hips together, Derek's hands on Stiles' ass to pull him closer, writhing against each other, only breathing each other's gasps as they were biting into each others mouths.   
Stiles let out a loud moan, muffled against Derek's skin, still loud somehow. Derek's breathing came out ragged, heavy, Stiles couldn't hear anything else. His mind solely focused on that breathing so close to him, in and out, alive.  
Stiles' head slumped against Derek's shoulder, mouthing at the soft skin he found there, refused to look at the blood stains on his chest, put his hands all over to cover them, protect Derek even in the aftermath when all of it was over and Derek was already healed.

Derek pushed him against the wall, Stiles' back must have hit the button then. He startled with a yelp as all the cold water came pouring down on them. Freezing cold.

Derek grumbled something unintelligible as he continued to kiss his way down Stiles' throat, licking the cool water dripping down. Stiles didn't even feel the cold when he was pressed up against Derek's warm body, Derek's warmth radiating from him and into Stiles with every brush of lips or fingers. Derek kissed and nibbled his way up to Stiles' ear, his hand finding a way in Stiles' very drenched shorts.

"Fuck." was all Stiles' brain was able to supply as he finally came.

"Never do that again you said?" Derek smirked. Smug little fucker. 

"I was definitely not referring to this. This is not only allowed, but required. All day, everyday." Stiles swatted Derek on the shoulder. Derek's expression softened a little, exhausted in more than one way. "Are you really okay?"

Derek gave him a tiny nod. Not a lie but not really a strong answer either, Stiles still accepted it.

*-*-* 

  
They were in bed now. Naked. Yeah, they got there by the second time. Clothes had never been more in the way as they had felt tonight. Now Stiles felt better, naked there, with Derek very much alive asleep next to him. 

Just a second to think about the strange evolution of his life since he first stepped a foot into this preserve. He couldn't really regret it, not when this had been the best sex he had ever had and not just... Not just the sex. It was strange, this thing between him and the Hales. Between him and Derek. It was something.   
Potential partner, yeah, that could be a way to put it into words. It could somehow explain how this got to come into existence. Him, here in bed, with Derek, for what? A night? It didn't feel like this was just for a night. Could he dare think it could be for longer than that? It could probably last the summer. Would Derek even want to keep Stiles around for that long? Would Stiles?

He was only nineteen years old and he had only known Derek for a tiny fraction of the time Stiles had spent on this planet. There was a whole world out there and college wasn't it. College wasn't the world. Was this preserve the world? Was Derek the world? Fuck, he sort of felt like Stiles' whole world at the moment. Some kind of twist of fate and Stiles' whole world was here in the heart of the man in his bed and that was just something so crazy and yet so right.

He couldn't even blink or look away. Maybe that was what post coital bliss was supposed to feel like. Maybe this was just his brain feeling so hazy after some powerful orgasms, more powerful than he could probably handle. He was only human. Maybe there was a limit to what his body could bear to feel. Maybe it was just...   
Derek sighed a deep profound sigh in his sleep. It was such a long exhale, amazing in a way. It was as if he was letting go of everything he had kept buried and caged inside and was just now finally breathing. Stiles felt it travel through him. 

  
Something felt off all of a sudden. Something felt off, but not right here. Outside. Stiles' head perked up, trying to look out the window without actually moving out of bed as to not disturb the sleeping beauty next to him, also because yeah it was really comfortable here under the duvet with all the warmth radiating from Derek. It should have been burning hot in the summer atmosphere but somehow after an insanely long cold shower which really didn't feel that cold with all the action going on, it felt nice to be there warm and safe.

Except he didn't feel safe. His paranoia was building up or something was actually happening, one or the other but something felt off.   
He realized he actually hadn't asked Derek about the threat of the hunters. They came back bloody and battered. Stiles didn't even know if Peter had managed to find his way back home or not. He didn't really care about Peter on any given day but Stiles wouldn't stand back if any of the Hales were in danger. 

Yeah, and now he was pissed again. Pissed at all three of them for having kept him in the dark about this. He was a mere human, okay, he knew that, but he wasn't a burden. He wasn't a damsel in distress. They were the ones in distress. Would the hunters even hurt Stiles or the human kids? Stiles couldn't be sure. His gut instinct told him that it was probably an affirmative. Hunters still at work in today's world, they weren't good guys. They were rogue. As rogue as some of the alphas going to bite innocent bystanders without asking for consent. 

Jerks existed everywhere. The line wasn't drawn at the supernatural, it wasn't like it was two sides, it was just one society with different kinds of people in it. 

Stiles was a soft little carebear living on a nice little cotton candy cloud. He wished people would live in harmony and happily ever after without ever killing each other for any of the fuckingly stupid reasons that had brought the world to war ever since the dawn of time. Make love, not war. Just a thought to throw out there because fuck if love wasn't something great. Greater than dying that was for sure.

  
Something was definitely going on outside. Some twigs were cracking and Stiles hadn't been imagining them the first time and it was a confirmation now. 

Praying to the stars above that it might just turn out to be a cute little porcupine, Stiles slipped out of bed.

Clothes. Clothes first and foremost. 

Stiles wasn't going to be running outside to meet his untimely death butt naked like the day he was born. 

By the time he was pulling on some pair of pants, he caught a shadow passing by his window from the corner of his eye. 

Not a porcupine then. Was he even surprised?

Why didn't Derek kill the assholes? It would have been so much easier to deal with corpses than with alive hunters still out there trying to kill them. Derek was a soft one, wasn't he? Of course, he didn't kill them...

Hell if Stiles was going to let some demented hunter step one foot into his camp. 

  
He quickly got dressed, looked around the cabin for something that could serve as weapon. He didn't bring his baseball bat. That was a shame. He'll have to find something outside. 

  
*-*-*

  
Waking Derek up could have been advised in retrospect.  
Stiles had barely stepped out of his cabin when he found himself face to face with a stranger. An angry, killer looking stranger. Also guns. Lots of them.

Shit. Did the Hales really let them all go with all their weapons? Peaceful wolves my ass, where were the instincts? The predators, the killers, the protectors of the pack?

Stiles' fury was building up inside of him. Dammit, was he more wolf than the wolves?

"What's this?" An old guy said. Stiles guessed he was the leader, he definitely had seniority over the others. The moonlight reflecting on his crooked teeth and that bald patch on his very long forehead. Stiles refrained his comment. Now wasn't the time. Or maybe it was.

"Yo, Homer Simpson. Are you here to grow some fur? 'cause that would be needed in this area!" Stiles said gesturing to the top of his head. 

It wasn't his best comment but he wasn't here to win the snark contest, he was here to assess the enemies and find a weapon of his own. He half wished to make as quick and painless as possible so that Derek would just stay asleep and not have to fight again. Although, yeah, claws, fangs, strength and super healing Stiles could use as a shield, these were also some very good points. 

"He's human." One of the younger guys stated. "We could spare him."

"Thanks for the update." Stiles rolled his eyes. "I know, I know, I'm human, humans are weak and useless. No need to kill the lowly human."

"We're not stopping at anyone." Bald Guy said. 

"There are human kids in this camp." Stiles said through gritted teeth. "They're all children."

"Take him out." The old man gestured with his head to just get on with it.

Stiles startled and ducked the fist coming right to his face. He scrambled to the floor and found a big enough stick. That would have to do.   
Stiles was a very much flesh-and-blood, couldn't deny his very weak human look, even tonight when he wasn't hiding his body under layers and layers of clothes. He knew he had limitations, of course he had, but the threat in front of him, as far as he knew, were mere humans just like him. Trained and armed, but humans. What he had for himself was quick wit and quick legs. All of which bald old guy didn't have. He would play into their wrong assumptions. Just a human kid, easily taken out.   
Stiles was very happy to let them all believe that. 

What they couldn't know (it wasn't written on his forehead after all) was that he was his father's son. They couldn't imagine the hours he spent with his dad. It was as much training as it was bonding as it was playing sports. Stiles wanted Lacrosse, Dad wanted Baseball. It turned into a mix of things, also mixed with self-defense because Dad was the sheriff and sheriffs could easily make enemies. Especially when he had no problem expressing his political opinions and his openness toward the supernatural. Dad was no human supremacist and that rustled some bigot feathers.

  
Stiles learned from the best. That was the thought crossing his mind when he slammed his tree branch into the approaching hunter's face. Stiles wasn't sure what cracked, it could have been the branch or the man's skull. In any case, the hunter went down.

One down.

Stiles quickly glanced around. One, two, three... four to go counting Bald Guy. That was a lot. There was something he needed to go dig within himself. That rage he always kept buried, the rage he almost always refused to tap into, the rage against the whole world, against the injustice, the rage of that little kid losing his mom way too young in way too hurtful circumstances. That rage was in there underneath all the talks and the jokes and the too loud laughter. That rage was in there, and Stiles was going to use it.

The rage started to boil, running through his veins bringing something dangerous, something powerful in him. Humanity could be dark, humanity could be deadly. 

Another guy came his way. Smart guy, he was rising his gun, pointing it right at Stiles. 

Stiles only wondered how much faster this would feel if he was a wolf, he wondered what it would feel like through Derek's eyes. His branch was still intact in his hand, pretty sure the noise had been that guy's skull after all. 

The hunter walked up to him, into Stiles' space. He was apparently going for a point blank shot, probably wanting to shut Stiles up for good, blow his brains out and along with his whole face. Stiles didn't even blink before his knee jerked up and hit the guy in the groin. Farewell family jewels. A sharp whimper escaped the guy's throat. He hunched over in pain, Stiles secured his grip on his branch and brought him down on the hunter's back. Hard. Stiles threw another swing for good measures and smashed it into the side of the guy's stomach.

The gun fell the ground, firing in the distance. 

So much for discretion.

"Could we maybe talk this through peacefully?" Stiles asked, batting his eyelashes innocently. Fake innocence. He was playing with his new best friend the branch, transferring it from his right hand to his left and then back, keeping a loose grip on it.

"Kill him!" That spoilsport Bald Guy exclaimed.

At that exact moment, the wooden door of the cabin crashed, almost breaking the hinges, Derek stepped out on the small stairs, such a dramatic appearance, Stiles might be a little bit in love. He straightened to his full height, flicked his claws out and tilted his head slightly from side to side as he shifted to his beta form with a growl, the glow of wolf bright in his eyes in the night. 

The two younger hunters took a step back before thinking better of it and standing their grounds again with their guns aiming at Derek. 

  
Stiles' lips quirked up. "You know," he said. "the funny thing about monsters is that they come in many different forms. Appearances are misleading."

The young hunters narrowed their eyes at Stiles. Their focus faltering enough for Derek to jump on one, slashing his claws across the man's hands and ripping his gun away from him. 

Stiles threw his branch to the second one and hit him in the shoulder. Honest to God, Stiles should have gone for javelin in athletics class. He never knew he had such a good aim. 

Bullets flew all around but Stiles was unbothered. It was as if his mind had turned off in some way. The rage lurking underneath the surface had taken over this time. 

The young hunter Derek was fighting wasn't letting it go, a sharp knife held in his bloody slippery hands, he was still going. Derek esquived once, twice. A deep growl escaped from his chest. He probably was also overpowered by his animal instincts.

Stiles took a second to look at him, admire the shift, the actual werewolf in front of him. 

Bald Guy didn't miss his chance and brought his gun up to Stiles' face. Stiles took in a sharp breath held his hands up. 

"Anyway, back on track." Stiles’ voice went low, called for danger. "My point was, the monsters here aren't the supernatural beings at all."

"You're just a dumb kid who knows nothing." Old Guy slurred so close to Stiles' ear, shivers ran down his spine feeling the breath on his skin. "No one will miss you."

The shot fired. Stiles closed his eyes shut tight. How awful that these were the last words he heard in this lifetime.

The body slumped to the ground at his feet. It wasn't Stiles' body. It took a minute to realize he wasn't having an outer body experience. 

Peter had come out of nowhere, blood all over, and dug his claws through the old hunter's rib cage, straight to his heart almost ripping it out before letting the body fall back. 

"You guys know there are little innocent children on this property, right?" Peter reprimanded Stiles and Derek. "I don't care what kind of kinky preliminary this is but this should definitely not be done when the camp is full."

"Shut up." Derek growled. "I thought you had said you were taking care of it!"

He had his booted foot on the young hunter's head, pinning him in to the ground.

"Yeah, well, they turned out to be trickier than I expected." Peter shrugged before growling at Derek. "Don't you dare say I'm out of shape!"

Peter was apparently ready for family banter but Stiles was still focused. "Is he dead?" Stiles felt the need to ask. 

The rage was stepping back now, dissolving into something else, an acidic aftertaste in his mouth. Anxiety bubbling. 

"That one yes." Peter conceded. 

"Good."

"What the hell was that?" Derek snarled.

"Yeah..." Stiles breathed out blankly. Pretty sure he was going to go into shock any minute now. He didn't feel guilty about any of it. The possible years of therapy flashed in his mind. 

Stiles glanced over at Derek. The hunter under his foot had blacked out from the lack of oxygen. Derek hadn't shifted back to his human form yet. 

Stiles realized then that Derek's eyes were focused solely on him as he repeated, "What the hell was that?"

"What?" Stiles squeaked, voice definitely cracking over the word. He cleared his throat, swallowing around the nervous lump in his throat. "Nothing would have happened if you guys -"

 _"Stiles."_ Derek scolded.

"Dude." Stiles shrugged. "If you think I would have stayed in the cabin locking all the doors behind me while you went out fighting, you got another thing coming. Maybe I'm not the strongest or the fastest or remotely super anything, but I can get by. I'm not a fragile little thing. I will fight for what I feel is just, I can take care of himself and if you're able to tell me that you'll always do it, that you'll do it again. _Right?_ Isn't that what you told me? Guess what? I'm the same. I'm always going to fight for the people I care about. That's just how it is."

Stiles made the mistake of looking down at his feet. He was faced once again with the bloody corpse of the hunter. He felt faint for a second. Shit. He actually hadn't thought about what it would mean to see someone dead. Better that guy than anyone else though.

He was all for the friendships and the alliances and trying to educate people. But some people were just not educable. That was just a fact to be accepted. Some people were just assholes who were getting a kick out of threatening a camp full of children and enjoyed sending dead rats via mail to make their point clear as if they were just living in some remake of any mafia movie but featuring dead rats as the new twist. Stiles had almost laughed when Derek had told him that as they were setting up the water slide, it was so ridiculous. Derek's face though had been dead serious. Stiles had swallowed his laughter and joke because this was no joke.  
There was no educating that asshole.  
Some bigot, some useless bastard was always going to not get it.  
As long as that guy stayed in his stupid dumb hole, Stiles saw no problem letting him be. But the moment that same bigot, that same bastard was going off in some power hungry battle, all bets were off.

Stiles would let them suffer if that was their fate. Stiles would let them bleed. Maybe that would define Stiles as not being a good person. He wasn't sure he cared.

One of the younger hunters was coming back to himself, coughing and dry heaving blood.

Stiles stepped away. He would have liked to think he did it with dignity, but he sort of scampered away like a scared little rabbit. 

"I'm calling my dad." Stiles murmured as he quickly made his way to the cabin to find his phone.

The conversation with his dad was very one sided. Stiles barely let the sheriff any time to speak at all. He needed him to come and not ask questions until Stiles had made up his mind about what to tell him. All of it was self defense, the hunters had come into camp to murder everyone, murder children. They deserved whatever came their way.

It didn't change the somewhat uneasy twist in his gut though. He had only gone off adrenaline walking out of the cabin and now the high was leaving his body and he was crashing. If he had a breaking point, he probably reached it, except he didn't break at all. It just woke something in him, an instinct he always guessed was hidden behind a wall. The wall had been pushed to the side when Stiles had needed to let his wild mind run.

Derek walked into the cabin, ever so softly, as if he was afraid to spook Stiles. Stiles' closed off expression quickly changed into a small smile as he turned to find Derek leaning against the wooden door, back in his human form. Derek was alive. They were all alive. The kids were safe.

"What was that?" Derek breathed out. That was a good fucking question. Stiles had no real answer to it.

Stiles shrugged, "Do my actions have to have any meaning?"

Derek only answered with a blank stare, Stiles shrugged again.

“I guess I'm just stupid.” Stiles murmured.

"You're far from being stupid." Derek said matter of factly, his eyes still searching Stiles.

"I'm happy to be valued." Stiles shot back finding it in himself to joke a little.

Derek stepped closer, fingers lightly brushing the skin on Stiles' arm. Again, Stiles felt like a scared little animal that Derek was trying to approach and tame. Stiles' resolve was fading.

"I just didn't want anything to happen to you or anyone else. I didn't really think about anything else." Stiles admitted.

Derek only nodded, brushing his forehead against Stiles' in a very calming gesture, steadying Stiles' heart in no time at all. Something about Derek's scent, warmth and steady breathing. Was that something that was supposed to work on humans too? It felt magic.

  
Stepping outside, Stiles let out a breath, his eyes traveling slowly up the tall tall trees up to the night sky. The stars still found a way to sparkle brightly through the thick green summer leaves.

The sounds of muffled sirens reached their ears, the werewolves' first. 

Laura had kept the kids all together, probably woken up after hearing the first gun shot echo through the forest. They were all walking out now, slowly and on high alert but reassured by the flashing lights of the police cruisers coming up the road. 

  
The sheriff went directly to hug his son. First and foremost. He hugged him, tightly, strongly, lovingly, whispered some sweet nothings that Stiles didn't even register because he was embraced in the feeling of Dad. It felt as if his dad was trying to hold all of Stiles’ bruised pieces together, make sure he was and stayed whole, his son.

“I’m fine, Dad. I’m fine.” Stiles breathed shakily.

The sheriff grabbed and handcuffed the only hunter still conscious and locked him in the back of his cruiser. The other three were in bad enough shape that they were taken by the ambulance when it got on the scene.  
As for Bald Guy, Peter confessed with a shrug and a grimace, saying he could have gone the non-killing route and he just had chosen not to. 

Dad sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. "I'll just keep that _off_ the record. Try to show some remorse when you find yourself in front of a jury," was his only advice.

Peter just huffed out dismissively.

It was close to dawn when Stiles finally took off his shoes, tugged his bloody shirt over his head.   
Derek was still hovering. 

"Do you need me to go?" Derek asked whisper quiet. "I understand if all of this was all too much."

"Shut up." Stiles said, words without strength. 

  
He stood, not in the mood to ramble or question or even explain himself. He wasn't in the mood to tease or joke either anymore. He pulled his pants down over skinny hips without even unbuttoning anything. 

All he wanted was Derek and Derek's loose, warm body yielded to his.

Stiles stepped into Derek's space, his lips finding their way to Derek's mouth as if it was where they belonged. Nothing really felt important but this right here.

  
Derek broke the kiss, hands making circles on Stiles back. 

"There's no more threat for now. Let's get you to bed. Get some sleep." Derek stated.

"Get us to bed." Stiles corrected. "I'm not letting you just yet. I hope you're a cuddler. I really feel like being a little spoon right now."

Derek nipped at Stiles' lower lip as he hummed in agreement. "That can be arranged."

*-*-* 

  
Stiles stood at the main entrance gate, down where the narrow preserve dirt road met the county road. The whole forest vibrated with the kids excitement. He stood there, waving at each kid on their way out of the camp.

Summer was over. There was both a great relief and a light sadness to it. Some bittersweet ending.

They managed to finish the session without much trouble. 

Stiles was surprised his dad hadn't dragged his ass out of there as soon as he had stepped out of the cruiser that particular night a few weeks ago. The sheriff had acted very professionally, introduced himself to the Hales, to the kids, took all of their testimonies, scolded Peter, Derek and Laura for not coming forward with the threats as soon as they started receiving them. Stiles had let out some comment about victim shaming that had earned him a glare from his dad. That wasn't surprising coming from a sheriff but it didn't mean Stiles was wrong. Sure, Stiles agreed that it would have been nice to have some nice armed backup, but coming forward too early with very little evidence of anything wouldn't have made a difference. They wouldn't have been able to do much of anything. Get some shifters to smell the dead rat in the hopes of tracking a scent? Get a hacker to track a most probably fake IP address to find a dead end? Please, if the hunters were determined enough, which they had been, they would have found the cracks in all of the police protection. 

The camp had been kept under close surveillance for the rest of the summer. Some of the kids, in particular the little Amy had taken a kin interest in the police force and was now decided to become a deputy when she grew up. The remaining weeks went without a hitch. 

  
Cars were steadily passing by, emptying out the camp of all his child population. Stiles waved at the ugly little SUV cars leaving to finally go home. Derek came to stand next to him without a word. The ghost of a hand found its way to Stiles' hip. Stiles felt his lips split into a grin. 

  
Stiles let out a small sigh. “I love these kids, but ugh, yeah they can be so exhausting sometimes."

Derek snorted. “You can say that again.”

"I'm not mad the summer is over...” Stiles admitted. "At least not for the children side of the activities. I mean I might miss another kind of activities." Stiles winked playfully.

Derek rolled his eyes. Stiles was going to miss this too. He wished they had had any sort of talk about this thing between them. Potential partners, my ass, Stiles thought. He wished he didn't have to leave his potential behind. He'd very much like to get this potential and let it grow into something more than just an idea. 

Derek turned to really face him, meeting Stiles' gaze with a soft kind eyes. “I might miss the person who made these activities happen.” 

Stiles stared at that light glint in Derek's eyes, a smirk forming on his lips. “Would you figure we have time for one more before I have to leave for college?”

"Not really no." Derek smiled. "It will have to wait."

 _"Wait."_ Stiles nodded. He liked the sound of that. "Long?" He dared ask, before focusing his attention to that very interesting spot over Derek's shoulder, not brave enough to meet Derek's eyes. He worried his lower lip waiting for an answer.

"At least until next weekend when I come visit you." The corners of Derek's mouth were twitching when Stiles glanced back at him. What a dick. 

  
"Can you tell me now what the kids had written on my back during body painting?" Stiles asked. "Surely, the secret doesn't hold now that they are gone."

Rather than answer, Derek just nuzzled his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck, whispering something inaudible. He stayed there a long moment, breathing Stiles in, Stiles just letting him, enjoying him. Derek adjusted himself, moved just barely but enough so that his mouth found the way to Stiles’ collarbone, finding a home there. 

Stiles moaned, so low it was almost completely quiet. A silence born from weeks of secret stolen kisses and touches trying to not get caught by the kids, by Laura or god forbid by Peter who was as creepy as he had always been, even now under investigation. The necessity of silence had only been broken in Stiles’ lonely cabin deep into the night, hidden under the cover of darkness. Stiles would make up for it in his college dorm room if Derek was up for keeping all the neighbors up at night.

  
"They'll be back next year." Derek said his tone serious.

Stiles shrugged. The secret would live on until he was able to get it out of Derek. Everything would come in time.

  
The last car drove by with a honk that made Stiles jump. Derek didn’t seem bothered by the startle much. He hummed quietly as he took as step back. 

Stiles smiled bumping shoulders with Derek. “It's true that all the loyal customers left camp satisfied this year, even after everything. Most of them promised to be back.” 

After a moment he was to one to properly lean into Derek’s space earning a happy hum which was echoed in his own chest. 

They began to walk back to the main building, slowly, without forcing a conversation, listening to the sounds of each other and the twigs cracking beneath their feet. 

They still had to check the rest of the camp, the main building and the couple cabins to the left were the kids had been sleeping, just to make sure everything was in order and then Hale’s Summer Camp would only turn back into the Hale House until next summer.

Stiles wondered how the three of them managed the change of atmosphere, it already felt so quiet, so still without all the running kids.

  
Derek leaned in to whisper the secret in his ear. "It was _Hale's Disaster_."

"Is this a joke?" Stiles gaped.

"You know the saying about truth and kids." he announced, his tone only exposing neutrality and not much else. 

Stiles dramatically collapsed to the ground next to a tree. He sort of figured that underneath it all, there was one piece of information that he couldn’t deny. Even if he had wanted to stay oblivious, he couldn’t do that and to his own surprise he actually didn’t want that. He wanted to know. He had come to Hale’s Summer Camp to learn about himself and about the supernatural. He had received more than what he had bargained for. It was an understatement to say so. 

He needed to accept all of it as truth, about his rage and about his love. Some fire burned bright in him, filled with all the red emotions.

“I'm yours then." Stiles concluded, a surprisingly possessive growl to his words. Maybe being around wolves rubbed off on him.

Derek slowly lowered his head to stare back at Stiles. He didn't say a word but Stiles could read it in his eyes.

"I bet you never guessed that was what you signed up for when Laura hired you." Derek said after a while.

"Would have never guessed what she meant when she said I had potential." Stiles smiled.

"Pretty sure, she didn't know the extent of it either." Derek said softly. "You were quite exceptional at this job. The Stilinski Slide will stay remembered for the generations to come."

"Wait until you see what I'll come up with next year." Stiles shrugged. 

He was already planning it all and it was going to be glorious. Just Stiles' absolutely unbiased opinion.


End file.
